Stinging Arrows 2007 Sydney City Chase win

Sunday, 18 March 2007

The Stinging Arrows team of Andy Hill and Ben Rattray have won again, making it 3 from 3 in City Chase races. The undefeated record includes the 2006 Sydney race, the World Championships in Chicago, and now the 2007 Sydney race. But things are likely to change. As part of their prize from Chicago, they have elected to race in the Madrid race in June. They will then race in Paris the following week in an attempt to be the best prepared team for the 2007 Championships, in a location that will not be announced until August.

The 2007 Sydney Race

Bigger and better this year, entries doubled last years race and the event was covered as the 4th story on Nine news. This year included more prominent sponsorship from companies like Volvo, Nokia and Reebok, and the start in the Big Top at Luna Park. So if the pressure from being the reigning world champions as well as Andy and Ben's competitiveness wasn't enough, the atmosphere at the start was enough to make it all boil over. Here's Ben's report:

What we did:

The 60 second count-down was electric, and we were soon racing in a frenzy. I identified the first chase point immediately, and made the decision to head straight for it. We raced to Kirribilli House for a photo shoot with the PM. We were given a questionnaire at the checkpoint that had to be completed during the course. I looked at it briefly, but was two minutes away before I realized we needed the photographers name. Not too worry, we can find out from another team later. At this early stage we had a reasonable idea of the course lay-out although there were a couple of points that would either not be revealed until later, that we had to send away an SMS for, or that both ourselves and our internet team could not immediately answer. If we had known the whole course, we certainly would have run a different route (and on our estimates finished up to 50min earlier) but that is not how the race works. Instead of going to the near-by Ensemble theatre we ran across the Birthday Bridge and pulled into the Enmore Hotel. A quick limerick later, we were down to the MCA next to Circular Quay to make a balloon dog. As a requirement to raise $20 for the Sydney Children’s Hospital we were lucky to find a couple 20m away kind enough to buy my dog. After donating an extra $30 for the cause (only partly because we didn’t have change) we raced off initially towards Wynyard. Lucky Andy warned me to go slow because it wasn't too long before we corrected our course, and headed in the right direction to the -5 Ice Bar in eastern Circular Quay. At the ice bar we quickly located the first date of the nominated show on the National Geographic channel, mainly due to the team in front not closing their TV guide before I could read it. We then rolled 4 die and proceeded up to the actual bar where we ate the number of ice cubes that we had rolled (18).

The compulsory check point was out in Bondi Junction and we decided this was our next port of call. We made the train in Martin Place with a minute to spare (perfect timing) and spent the next 10 min or so using the train travel to catch up on some necessary details. One of the main tasks was to get our internet team to text for the Nokia clue since we had been unsuccessful in doing so over the previous 20 min. We checked a few details over the phone and hit Bondi Junction running at full speed for the scavenger hunt chase point. We rushed off on the hunt and picked up a couple of the 10 out of 15 items/questions very quickly. It then dawned on me that I had most of the items required in our bag (researching past races pays off sometimes). We headed back to the chase point and within a couple of minutes had shown the evidence required to complete the chase point. We saved many minutes here, and given what was about to happen, this is a major reason why we won the race.

Heading off down Oxford St towards Centennial Park we were encouraged by our early form. On the phone though I was realizing that things were about to change. A miscommunication over the phone meant that I misunderstood a street name which manifested into a complete mislocation of a chase point. Essentially we had been standing in front of the East Leagues club, and now we were 2km down the road. A few obscenities later I settled back down quickly to try and resurrect an alternative plan. We ran past Centennial Park and with no clear idea of where the chase point(s) were, and a bit shaken by our mis-communication we ran straight past 2 more chase points. We didn’t realize the extent of our mistake initially which was lucky otherwise we may not have tried to make the best out of our situation. We ended up running all the way to the Boy Charlton pool, getting there just as they announced the chase point was opening. It was a gruelling chase point with the Boot Camp instructors and by the time we had finished, the chase point had cost me and Andy valuable time and energy. Pushing on, we ran towards the Four Seasons hotel, the location our internet team had received as part of the Nokia text clue.

Before we really understood what was happening, Andy and I were strapped back to back and were running 800m down the street to a location they had shown us on the Nokia N95 (what a sweet phone). We received the bonus location at this point and headed just down the street to Jackson’s on George. Andy put on my make-up the best he knew how (he obviously doesn’t use make-up himself!), I completed my cross-dressing and learnt how to pole-dance before performing to a judge. I can’t wait for the pictures!

We completed our trivia questions from the first chase point on our way to Observatory Hill where we handed up our completed questions. Thanks to our internet team and chase point competitors (girlfriend) for the answers. Really starting to hurt at this stage, we needed two more chase points, and we knew it was a long run. We ran back across the Bridge and back to the Ensemble theatre that we had been within metres of two hours earlier. The chase point was a no brainer and we scoffed the two worms each in preference over the soduko puzzle. A BIG uphill run we ended up in North Sydney oval for a bit of sewing. We took off for the final run downhill to Luna Park passing several teams on our way down through North Sydney. As it turns out, this is where we passed the “leading” team. We ran the back way in to Luna Park, thinking the loud cheers were the sounds of the first teams finishing. A little dejected after having what we thought was a very messy race we ran into the finish from the opposite direction to what was expected. But then they announced, AND THE WINNING TEAM…..

Based on Google Earth, I estimate we had run very close to 22 km. 

We finished completely spent, we had physically given everything we had. Despite the injury-ridden preparation, we had performed physically well, but had exhausted ourselves more fully then normal and it was going to take us a while to recover. As we performed several interviews and re-creations of the finish for Nine news, National Geographic and photographers we learnt that the organizers had followed the leading teams progress and had not expected our win. We clinched it by a mere 90sec in a race that lasted over 2 hours 40. In the end it was our desperation to get back to the World Champs that got us through.

Thanks to our internet team (Kerrin and Kylie) and competitors (particularly Mace and Moira) for their help. Thanks to Brooks for proving our race gear and shoes.

Watch the Channel 9 news report featuring Ben, Andy and Orla